Chiefs or Bucs? Super Tough Call.
Tampa Bay vs. Kansas City.
When he needed a quick column, my old friend, mentor and drinking buddy Mike Royko liked to make a pick for the World Series or Super Bowl based on, um urban aesthetics.
It was easy when it was Rust Belt/Snow Belt vs. West Coast/Sun Belt.
Pittsburgh vs. L.A.? Take Pittsburgh. Those SoCal people can (and do) go to the beach while people in Pittsburgh are shoveling snow. In the stadium.
On that premise, Kansas City would get the nod.
But there are other factors to consider.
For example, being a populist, I like to see these championships spread around.
Since the Chiefs won last year and Tampa Bay is what you’d call long suffering (from an NFL standpoint, at least), that would tip the scale toward the Buccaneers.
Then again, Tampa Bay holds the Stanley Cup and played in the most recent World Series. And it has beaches. Back to you, Kansas City.
On the other hand, it would appear that the Chiefs, because of their politically incorrect Indian/Native-American nickname, should not be encouraged by disinterested parties.
The Washington team that shall not be named has caved. Can Kansas City be far behind?
That said, I don’t know what to make of Tampa Bay as a sports town. Tampa Bay, you may know, is not even a city. It’s a body of water. You’ve got your Tampa. And your St. Petersburg. And all kinds of nearby places filled with sand and oranges—and Snowbirds and year-round transplants who have traded their snow shovels for hurricane slickers.
I have played Snowbird in one of those places, Bradenton. I seem to remember the baseball team was determined to secure a cool new retro park in Tampa because its unappetizing dome in St. Pete was, um, unappetizing. Never found out how that came out.
So, advantage Kansas City.
But then there’s the quarterback quandary.
First, there’s Tom Brady. The initial thought that this is Mr. Perfect. I don’t like that phrase GOAT. In my generation, the goat was the player who screwed up. Nothing great about that.
Brady was always the guy most people rooted against. Yeah, he won. But he and Belichick were like a two-headed Nixon. Not merely content to crush the opposition, they resorted to nefarious deeds, the Watergate version of the NFL. Without impeachment.
Only now, Brady is supposed to be a 43-year-old feel-good story, proving the critics who said he was too old wrong by marching on to his 87th championship.
The problem with adopting Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, though, is this: Dedicated Bears fans—a cult I was required to swear off as a sportswriter—should have very mixed feelings about seeing the precocious Mahomes dazzle.
That should be painful to watch in Chicago. Like watching Lou Brock play in the World Series with the bloody Cardinals.
If the Bears had not outsmarted themselves into thinking Mitchell Trubisky was a good idea, Mahomes coulda, shoulda, woulda been wearing a Bears uniform.
But no. They had to keep their streak alive of not having an actual, durable standout quarterback since Sid (Look Him Up) Luckman.
The bottom line in Super Bowl LV: Root for your Squares.
That’s what you were going to do, anyway.